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There must be cheering Iraqis on TV

Tony Blair's efforts to keep George Bush on a UN route in Iraq are increasingly focusing on the aftermath of war. As lobbying starts for a new security council resolution, getting a powerful presence for the UN in Baghdad once Saddam Hussein's regime has fallen is seen as no less important than getting a UN mandate for military attack.

The prime minister's gamble in going to war in defiance of the British electorate depends heavily on ensuring quick victory and having the people of Iraq greet incoming US and British troops with flowers. Only if the TV cameras can demonstrate that Iraqis feel liberated will Blair be able to claim vindication.

The moaning minnies will be scattered to the winds, he calculates, just as he believes those who opposed the bombing of Afghanistan were silenced when the women of Kabul "threw off their burkas" once the Taliban were ousted. Never mind that most Afghan women still wear the burka and Osama bin Laden remains active. The first TV pictures after victory are what matter. Subsequent chaos and disappointment will not be widely reported.

So London is now spending a great deal of effort in drafting scenarios for postwar Iraq. According to officials, much of Blair's time on his last visit to Bush was devoted to discussing the UN role. The White House still intends postwar Iraq to be placed under General Tommy Franks, the head of Central Command who will run the war. Jay Garner, another general, will control aid and reconstruction.

Enter the prime minister. His view is that the Americans should accept a broad-based international civilian administration within a few days of capturing Baghdad. Otherwise a liberating army risks being seen as an occupying force. The mission of bringing "good governance" to Iraq will look murky.

Whitehall planners are particularly concerned about the impact of the wrong strategy on the Arab world, which is convinced the war is about oil and is riddled with hypocrisy over Israel. In the Palestinian refugee townships of Jordan US plans were vehemently denounced last week. "If Britain were a dictatorship, would you welcome outsiders coming in to change your government?" one man asked me. "You cannot have American tanks in Baghdad and Israeli tanks in Jenin, and get away with it," commented a high-level Jordanian official.

Who can replace Tommy Franks? The Kosovo precedent shows the UN can be involved in peacekeeping if it has not said yes to war. The security council never gave permission for Nato's attack on Yugoslavia but even the Russians, who had been the main obstacle at the UN to war, sent peacekeeping forces.

This time the question is not whether France and Germany, the leading war resisters, would take part in a UN peacekeeping operation. The problem lies in Washington. An angry hardline administration and its rabid media supporters are not in a hurry to give these nations a stake in postwar planning. Blair will be making this point to Paris and Berlin as the drive for a new UN resolution intensifies. Get on board, or a furious Bush will cut the UN out even when victory is achieved, he will argue.

Britain carved out modern Iraq and has a bloody record of ruling it, either directly or behind the scenes. But in the new world order an American pro-consul swaggering round in combat fatigues is the ugly image of imperialism Blair wants to avoid. Which UN model to follow? In Kosovo, Nato runs security and the UN has a "special representative" who rules by decree. Almost four years after the Yugoslav retreat, Kosovo Albanians are not yet running the territory themselves.

The Afghan model is marginally less colonial. After the Taliban collapse, Afghans of various factions and ethnicities met in Germany to choose an interim government. The administration they picked (under heavy US pressure) has de jure power while western "donor" governments control the cash-flow and UN agencies spend it.

For those who oppose the war even if the UN is pressured into endorsing it, a colonial UN administration will only discredit the UN further. Why should the UN pick up the pieces because the US "only does war" and leaves others to sort out the mess?

Blair's "moral" case is a cynical gamble. Each of his ingredients - rapid collapse of Saddam Hussein, minimal casualties, cheering crowds and no post-war Tommy Franks - has its opposite. The war may last for months and provoke civil war and blood-letting. Tens of thousands may die or become refugees under the "shock and awe" avalanche of bombs. After victory, the US military may lord it over Iraq as insensitively as the Israelis do over the West Bank. A majority of people in Britain believe the gamble is immoral, even if it comes off as lightly as the prime minister hopes.